Perhaps one of the most valuable contributions made by computers today lies in their ability to electronically create and manipulate documents. A task that previously required manual typewriters, correction tape, and carbon copies can now be accomplished in electronic format, with minimal wasted time and resources. Although discarded typewriter ribbons, carbon sheets, and paper rough drafts are now safely a thing of the past, modern innovations in word processing computers and systems continue to improve efficiency.
One such improvement is the ability to incorporate drawing images as part of an electronic text document, and is offered in one form or another by a variety of word processing programs, such as MICROSOFT WORD®. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates an onscreen page 101 of a typical word processing program, in which text 103 and drawings 105 may coexist. Typical word processing programs also permit users to create text using different typeface fonts and/or sizes. Accordingly, it is possible for a user to change text 103 to a larger font, shown in FIG. 2. Also shown in FIG. 2, however, is the fact that upon increasing the font size, there is no longer enough room on the page for the drawing images 105. The drawing images 105 are, therefore, moved to the next page in the electronic document, leaving a space 201 on the current page. This space 201, however, is often confusing to the user. If the user were to enter data in space 201, it remains unclear as to where the data would appear, as it might be inserted into the document before, or after, the drawing images 105.
Additionally, in typical word processing programs, changing the font size does not change the size of a drawing image. The user who resized the text, for example, to make a document more readable with larger letters typically would also desire a corresponding enlargement to drawing images as well. With the typical word processing program, the user would have to undertake a second step of selecting and resizing each drawing image in the document. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved word processing system that can automatically resize drawing images in a document, responsive to a change in font size in the document.
This need extends to any device capable of editing or manipulating electronic text or drawings, such as personal data assistants (PDAs), portable computers, cellular telephones, etc. For example, the personal computer (PC) device shown in FIG. 4 may process electronic text and/or drawings, and may be a pen-based computing device. FIG. 5 depicts an example page 501 of a document that may be shown, for example, on the FIG. 4 device. Page 501 may include one or more lines 503, for example, to assist users in aligning handwritten text, and may also include one or more drawing images 507. The device permits users to redefine the line height for lines 503, and as discussed above with regard to changing font sizes, it is desirable for drawing images 507 to be resized according to changes in line height.